


the comet boys

by yolkpoet



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, OT12 - Freeform, powers au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-11-21 09:33:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11354721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yolkpoet/pseuds/yolkpoet
Summary: the powers are curses.





	the comet boys

**BERLIN: 05:07, April 24th;** A spontaneous blizzard blew through downtown tonight, leaving behind wreckage and several casualties.

 

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Minseok has five alarms on his phone. One wakes him up at 12 p.m. and three to remind him to eat through the day. And, one at 12 a.m. to remind him to get groceries. He doesn't need any of them - his body has adapted quickly to the routine - but there's something oddly comforting about the blaring sound. It makes him feel less alone. It startles him out silence and it fills the loft with something other than gray paint and sparse furniture. 

He hasn't left his loft for anything other than midnight grocery shopping and taking out the trash. Living in seclusion suits him and keeps the rest of London alive. He doesn't have a landline in the loft but he does have a cellphone he uses mostly for news and fleeting moments of normalcy. He hasn't felt normal for years now but it's gotten worse since the accident in April. It'd been so involuntary but he'd felt a coldness seep into every inch of his skin before he saw the storm manifest before his wide, disbelieving eyes. His own body had felt more comfortable than ever as he'd watched people scream and try to get cover. 

He has nightmares about those screams - always wakes up sweating and with the bed covered in a thin layer of frost. And, frost melts away a lot quicker than guilt.

The worst of it is that Minseok remembers what it was like before this horrendous virus sprouted inside him. He remembers being a child and not having to worry about freezing someone to death. He remembers having touch be a positive thing. He remembers not having to wear gloves every time he leaves the house. He remembers not being sick and tired of his own reflection, of his own skin, of every single thing about him. He remembers having  _people_ in his life.

Nowadays, Minseok's company is mostly exclusive to newspapers and scalding hot coffee. And, a maddening wall full of printouts and article clippings. Every headline refers to some odd accidents around the world and a web of strings is pinned from headline to headline in a desperate search for connections. There's a few articles about blizzards, most of them about the Berlin incident, and they catch Minseok's eye without fail.

There's others about fires, odd CCTV videos, floods, and everything in between. It gives Minseok something to work on apart from the book editing he has to do to keep a roof over his head. It keeps him alive.

 

 

London is always busiest around noon when Minseok wakes up - the thin walls of the loft letting in all the noise and chaos. Today, he didn't have a nightmare and he wakes up actually refreshed for the first time in weeks. He stretches before slipping out of bed and his body moves like a machine as he goes through the motions of making coffee. He won't have his breakfast for another hour as he sits down to sip at coffee and open up today's newspaper. 

The front page is entirely political, filled with squabbles he can't bring himself to care about, and the rest of the thick stack is mostly sports, stocks, and somewhat funny cartoons. He's almost done with his cup of coffee with a headline in an obscure "world news" section catches his eye. It's stuffed into a corner block and it's talking about some fire in Arizona. Minseok is about to read further when his phone rings. 

Used to only hearing alarms at very exact, consistent times, Minseok nearly drops his cup and has to set it down with a shaking hand. The number is unknown and Minseok can feel his heartbeat in his ears, blaring just like the ringtone.

He reaches out slowly and thumbs over the screen to answer the call. 

His voice comes out croaky from being barely used and it's laced with panic as he says, "Hello?"

"Open your door, please," a voice gently responds and Minseok vision nearly blacks out.

 

 

\---

**Author's Note:**

> i aim to update weekly and welcome to the story i've agonized over for months [kim k voice: tragic]


End file.
